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"Egypt's stock exchange was hit by this year's rout in emerging markets, leading firms to postpone share offerings and liquidity to dry up, but parliamentary elections should help restore investor confidence in 2016, chairman Mohamed Omran said.

Interviewed at the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit, Omran said about a dozen companies had registered a new listing on the Egyptian market in 2015, but only half of these had proceeded with an initial share issue.

The others received permission to delay their IPOs, which are usually expected to be launched within six months of listing. Most hope to offer their shares in the first half of 2016, once liquidity and prices recover, Omran said."

"Saudi Arabia's stock market
stabilised on Monday after a slide on the previous day in
response to a downgrade of the kingdom's debt. Emaar Properties
lifted Dubai's market after reporting third-quarter earnings.

The Saudi equities index had dropped 1.1 percent on
Sunday after Standard & Poor's cut its rating of the kingdom's
sovereign debt, citing the damage to state finances from low oil
prices.

On Monday the impact of that news faded and the index closed
0.3 percent higher at 7,066 points, though it finished well off
the day's high of 7,118 points."

"Saudi Arabia's stock market edged up early on Monday, regaining some strength after a slide on the previous day in response to a decision by Standard & Poor's to downgrade the kingdom's sovereign debt. Egyptian stocks slipped lower.

Saudi Research and Marketing Group, publisher of pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat and one of the Middle East's largest media companies, surged 7.2 percent to 20.15 riyals as it resumed trading after being suspended since last Wednesday."

"Mohammed Al Fahim, the head of one of Abu Dhabi’s leading business groups, says the country’s older, established businesses should make a special effort to support struggling indigenous start-ups.

“In our time, the government helped us by announcing that all their purchases have to be done from local business houses – if a local trader or supplier is 10 per cent more expensive, it will still be acceptable to the government,” said Mr Al Fahim, the chairman of Al Fahim Family Council, which oversees a business group that is best known as one of the largest distributors of automobile brands in the UAE, including Mercedes-Benz, Fiat and Jeep.

“The government gave us a chance. It gave us the push, and we should now in return play the same part for young businesses,” said Mr Al Fahim."

"
Spend the afternoon strolling through Riyadh’s shiny shopping malls, or an evening at one of its luxury restaurants, and you’d never guess there’s an oil slump.
That’s not an accident, it’s Saudi policy in action. Sharing oil wealth with the public has helped keep the Al Saud family securely in power as turmoil sweeps the region. When the revenue slows down, as it’s doing now, the kingdom’s rulers would rather run huge budget deficits than risk tampering with that bedrock social contract.
Eventually, economists say, something may have to give. The International Monetary Fund predicts a fiscal gap exceeding 20 percent of economic output this year, and says at that rate Saudi savings would run out after five years. Standard & Poor’s cut the country’s credit rating last week. But for now, as it looks to trim project spending and payments to contractors, the world’s top oil exporter is making sure most of its citizens don’t feel the pinch."

"Turkey’s lira surged with stocks and bonds after the political party President Recep Tayyip Erdogan co-founded swept back into office in the second parliamentary vote this year, ending months of political deadlock.
The currency jumped the most since 2008 on a closing basis against the dollar and the Borsa Istanbul 100 Index soared the most in almost two years as the government’s 10-year bonds advanced, with its yield plummeting to the lowest in more than three months. Societe Generale SA sees the lira climbing another 2.8 percent to 2.72 per dollar, its 200-day moving average, on optimism over AK Party’s win and Ecstrat Ltd., an emerging-markets consultancy, sees stocks rising as much as much as 15 percent in dollar terms.
"

"Emaar Properties lifted Dubai's stock market early on Monday after it reported third-quarter earnings, but most Gulf markets were little changed in quiet trade.

Dubai's top real estate developer reported a 31 percent rise in third-quarter net profit to 843 million dirhams ($229.5 million). That came in below a forecast by EFG Hermes, which had estimated 1.02 billion dirhams, but it was enough to boost Emaar shares 1.6 percent in the opening minutes.

"In Texas or the North Sea, oil companies struggling with falling prices are firing thousands of employees. In Kazakhstan, it is not so simple.
The central Asian nation was a poster child of the past decade’s oil boom, building a futuristic capital on the steppe with its hydrocarbon riches, but this year’s tumble in prices has pushed many of Kazakhstan’s Soviet-era oilfields into the red."